To Where You Are
by Ink On Paper
Summary: No survivors." And his world changed. . . . A study into Tony's thoughts through Season 7. Tiva. Spoilers for ToC and Jet Lag. Song lyrics by Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright. "Set the Fire to the Third Bar." Romance, Angst, Comfort/Healing.


**A/N: Well, this was supposed to go in the Playlist, but it morphed into this big, kind of pretty piece, so I decided to give it a place to stand alone. The lyrics featured are 'Set the Fire to the Third Bar' performed by Snow Patrol and Martha Wainwright. It was interesting to write because not only is it based loosely on a (beautiful) song, but I actually incorperated the lyrics into the piece. I had firm intentions to update everything today: the Playlist, In Sickness and In Health, the Liason, another piece that is sitting on in my fanfiction file. However, time, apparently, has escaped me again and I cannot pull another all nighter because falling asleep in the shower is dangerous. So I shall post this and make myself a major deadline that EVERYTHING will be updated by Saturday night. There. That ought to work. Anyway, let me know what you think. Good, bad, what were you thinking at 10:44pm? Kit.**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own NCIS or have any affiliation with Snow Patrol or Martha Wainwright and their respective associates. I only own a snoring calico cat.**

To Where You Are

_I find the map and draw a straight line. _You place your index finger over North America, the calloused pad crushing the star indicating D.C., drag your digit slowly to the right. . . .

_Over rivers, farms, and state lines. _Your finger crosses the Chesapeake Bay to the little peninsula that Maryland shares with Delaware. Traces the vast expanse of blue that is the Atlantic Ocean, smooth and tame under your fingertip. . . .

_The distance from 'A' to where you'd be. _Westward with a slight southern slope, a pause on the small piece of Israel. Of Tel Aviv and memories of angry accusations, dark untrusting eyes and the barrel of a gun staring down on you. . . . .

_It's only finger-lengths that I see. _You drop your hand, let it land limply at your side, suddenly leaden with exhaustion. But your eyes travel the few inches down and to the left, the protruding tip of the Horn of Africa. Off the coast of Somalia. . . . .

_I touch the place where I'd find your face. _Where her body lies, frozen, pale, and unalive. . . .

_My finger in creases of distant dark places. _Thousands of pounds of salt water, under swirling currents and violent storms. The distant dark recesses that claimed her. . . .

_I hang my coat up in the first bar. _You hurt too much to think, but your thoughts are racing. You shouldn't have waited so long, searched for her sooner, hell, you shouldn't have even left her there in a foreign land of secrets where she certainly didn't belong. And the air is hot with ale and sweat but you are so cold on the inside. . . .

_There is not peace that I've found so far. _You will never find solace at the bottom of a glass and this becomes apart after your second beer fails to quell your turbulent thoughts. . . .

_The laughter penetrates my silence. _And your sinking comrades are laughing as they drown their own sorrows just as you are drowning yours, just as the Indian Ocean drowned her. . . .

_As drunken men find flaws in science. _They slur over politics and ex-wives and the science of weather and sex. The flaws of life. . . .

_Their words mostly noises. _Eventually their words become white noise and you leave, floating absently, abandoning half a glass of Jack Daniels and a ten dollar bill.

_Ghosts with just voices. _That night, you lay in bed, listening to the whispers on the silence. She's speaking to you, you know it. Communicating without words, as you've always had. You just wish you knew what to say.

_Your words in my memory. _"That's a lie . . . .You jeopardized your entire career and for what? . . . . You killed him . . . ." You killed her too. "I guess I'll never know. . . ." And neither will you . . . .

_Are like music to me. _Melodic accent empathized with emotion, muttered Hebrew never to be heard again. No humming as she worked, no piano lessens that were promised to you a lifetime ago. . . .

_I'm miles from where you are. _And you are a hundred thousand light years away, but you would give anything to trade places with her. . . .

_I lay down on the cold ground. _Cold. Cold, cold, cold. . . .

_I, I pray that something picks me up. _The light at the end of the tunnel extinguished and you are plunged into the despair of darkness and eternal night . . . .

_And sets me down in your warm arms. _You yearn for warmth, her warmth. Her head on your shoulder, snoring softly in your ear. Her body pinning you down from a ricocheting bullet. Your back pressed against an anonymous wall as she invades your space, smirking. . . .

_After I have traveled so far. _You came for vengeance, to kill the man that indirectly killed her. Because you couldn't kill the ocean anymore than you could kill the storm. A hundred thousand light years away from a worn map on your desk -funny how close it looked on paper, Somalia compared to D.C. . . . . And the curtain goes up and the sack comes off and the dead is resurrected from a watery grave. . . . .

_We'd set the fire to the third bar. _She's before you, sitting calmly at her desk, fingers typing rapidly at a report. Her dark eyes glance up from the screen, capture your gaze. And the temperature in the room skyrockets, flames jumping. . . .

_We'd share each other like an island. _Six months later and she is laying in bed with you in Paris. You have your hand on her stomach, she has her head on your chest. And she fits perfectly in the moment with you. . . .

_Until exhausted, close our eyelids. _When words have been exhausted, you both eventually drift off into slumber. You wait for the marble-like snores to escape her lips before you even allow your heavy eyelids to blink. . . .

_And dreaming, pick up from. _You dream of her and you and her and you collectively. You dream of laughter and happiness and healing. . . .

_The last place we'd left off. _And when she stirs beside you, blinks away sleep, you grin at her, continue your tracing of serpentine images into her palm. She lets you touch her, permits the contact and you resolve to not betray the boundary that is unspokenly given. . . .

_Your soft skin is weeping. _Scars that were not there a year ago mar her golden skin, but she is radiant still. . . .

_A joy you can't keep in. _Your fingers brush between her shoulder blades, along her spine, and she shivers, suppressing a laugh because leave it to you to find the one place she is most ticklish. . . .

_I'm miles from where you are. _She was so far away, lost forever and ever . . . .

_I lay it down on the cold ground. _And you still aren't sure that you searched so hard because she was your partner or because you wanted so desperately to die too. . . .

_And I, I pray that something picks me up. _But that doesn't matter now, because you found her. And do not intend to lose her ever again. . . .

_And sets me down in your warm arms._

"_Because I couldn't live without you . . . ."_


End file.
